Zhangzhung/History

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Covering an area in excess of 2.5 million square km, Tibet borders on India, Nepal, Bhutan and Burma to the south; with Eastern Turkestan (Xinjiang) to the north and with China to the east. Tibet, therefore, commands not only the highest but also the most strategic position in Central Asia. Contemporary Communist dominance of Tibet notwithstanding, Tibet prior to the 1900s was once part of a unique culture and in the early Middle Ages, was the core of a sovereign nation and even the centre of a vast empire in eastern Central Asia under the dominance of the house of Yarlung. This was and still is a land steeped in long and ancient traditions and myths which have well stood the test of time, and continue to do so to this very day.

Yet in spite of all of this, Tibet's true origins remain a mystery, shrouded by myths and legends, and the vast lacuna of its long prehistoric past. So what exactly are the origins of Tibet? this faction history article will attempt to seek the truth with what has been made available to us thus far. As a faction history for the Zhangzhung and Tibetan civs of Age of Empires and Swords of the Prophets, it will discuss mainly the history of Tibet up to the collapse of the Empire in the late 9th century CE.

Shangri-La: The Roof of the World

The region of Tibet is vast, and comprises an area over two-thirds the size of India or more than two and half times the size of Austria, Denmark, France and Germany put together. Surrounded by high snow-capped mountain ranges and dotted with numerous lakes, Tibet is also the source of many great rivers – the Yarlung Tsangpo (Brahmaputra), Senge Khabab (Indus), Drichu (Yangtze), Zachu (Mekong), Machu (Yellow), and Gyalmo Ngulchu (Salween) to name a few.

Contrary to popular belief, Tibet is not entirely arid and barren: it is a land rich in minerals and the variety of its flora and fauna, and has attracted the attention of humans, who since then have made this region their home: as of 2020, Communist Chinese censes place the current population of Tibet somewhere around 3.64 million residents. It has vast areas rich in forests, endless pasturelands suitable for animal husbandry and extensive fertile valleys, which have provided the base of Tibet's agricultural economy since time out of mind, which always centred on two things: yak ranching and barley farming.

Yet when and how human habitation began in modern Tibet still remains a contested topic: a study by Zhang Dongju in 2016 using primarily the presence of archaeological remains suggests that as many as four human waves of prehistoric habitation taking place, all using the Yellow River Valley as the primary gateway for a westward penetration into the Tibetan Plateau and bringing with them cultivation of cereals from modern China, namely millet (5-3th millenium BCE) and wheat and barley — these being the very staples of Tibet's modern diet to this day (c 17th century BCE). This is seemingly supported by findings by Washington State University published a year before Zhang's study, which suggested that wheat and barley farming communities recolonised Tibet in the same period as suggested by Zhang, supplanting earlier millet farming cultures. In contrast, a paper published by Dutch linguist George van Driem (2013) suggests instead a gradual northward migration of people from the highlands of south and west China.

To date there is not one single consensus that can be reached by the scientific community on the issue of the history of human migration and settlement into Tibet, and it is unlikely it will be reached any time soon, given the political sensitivity of the issue of Tibetan history, especially for the Communist regime of the People's Republic of China which maintains that Tibet was and is a legitimate part of the Chinese geopolitical sphere.

Perhaps, in the light of what Tibetans' mythology has to say on their origins, we must accept all views, while clearly contradicting each other, must have a seed of truth in them.

Zhangzhung: Tibet during the Metal Ages

While the history of Tibet as a unified state as established by Emperor Songtsen Gyampo (ca 604CE–650CE) is well known and historically attested by Tibetan and Chinese sources, what is less known and certainly debatable as evidenced by the ongoing debate over early Tibet's demographic and anthropological history. What little locally produced literature on this subject was put down in writing mostly during the mediaeval era, and a lot of it is more myth than fact; more legend than history.

The most prolific source on Tibet's origins is the Old Tibetan Chronicle, found during excavations in Western China and dated to the 10th and 11th centuries CE. According to the Chronicle, the first kings of Tibet were of the line of an immortal being from heaven named Nyatri Tsenpo who was taken by the inhabitants of the land to be their king. Before Nyatri's reign, however, the Chronicle alongside various accounts speaks of a civilization called Zhangzhung that once dominated the Tibetan heartland and was ruled by a line of 18 kings who preceded Nyatri Tsenpo. Other sources speak that even the Zhangzhung civilization was preceded by people known only to us today as the Shen (again mentioned by Tibetan legend).

Whatever the truth behind its origins, Zhangzhung, so the legends say, was divided into three regions: Kham and Amdo formed the Go or Door; U and Tsang formed the Bar or Middle; and Guge and Tod-Nyari Korsum formed the Phug or Interior. The people of Zhangzhung were also claimed to be the founders of Tibet's indigenous Bön religion. In other accounts, however, the founder of Bön was not from Zhangzhung, but was a man known as Shenrab Miwo who came from further west and introduced it to the Shen people there.

Other sources (again, mediaeval ones) speak of how the sages of Bön didn't stop with Tibet alone, but also preached further south, eventually founding the two famous religious traditions of India: Hinduism and Buddhism. Still more disagreement on the true political nature of Zhangzhung is also proffered by Tibetan mythology: one story has Zhangzhung divided into three kingdoms, yet another described it as a mighty empire ruled from a magnificent palace built around Kyunglung (near Mount Kailash). Regardless, all of these accounts end the same way with Zhangzhung's subjugation by the chiefs of Yarlung, eventually founding the Tibetan Empire, as attested by the Tibetan Annals — again a Tibetan text excavated from caves in western China and thought to be a copy of earlier records and chronicles maintained by the then imperial government of Tibet for administration purposes.

While the many different accounts from Tibet paint differing pictures on the true nature of Zhangzhung (or its precursors), in contrast Chinese sources however paint a far less pleasant picture of proto-Tibetan cultures, and (possibly mistakenly) conflated them with other cultures who lived west of the Yellow River valley, under the (possibly derogatory) term of Rong. The Zhou-era Liji (Book of Rites), rather brusquely, states:

"Those on the west were called Rong. They had their hair unbound, and wore skins. Some of them did not eat grain-food."

Other sources of the Zhou period speak of how Rong influence stretched across what is today the western regions of China, and how the state of Qin was founded originally as a military garrison to provide horses for military use against the Rong — who were accused of having assassinated King You of Zhou and razed his capital, purportedly, at the behest of disgruntled in-laws. Yet other sources concede that the Rong peoples were also capable of being friendly enough to interact with the Chinese — the Zhou were said to have had relations with Rong tribes in the decades before they ascended to kingship of China (they originally had their stronghold near Mount Qi, on the border straddling modern Shaanxi to the east and Gansu to the west).

Unsurprisingly it is still not clear who the Rong mentioned here are indeed the progenitors of either Zhangzhung or modern Tibetan civilization although much later, Chinese annals of subsequent centuries mention a people known as the Qiang being an offshoot of one of the Rong tribes, and eventually migrating west into the Tibetan Plateau — where they are then mentioned again as founders of the Tibetan nation. Again there is little so far to prove this claim. Nevertheless, where scholarship has faltered, the spade has taken over with some rather spectacular results, especially given how harsh Tibet and the rest of the Himalayas can be for human habitation and exploration.

Although the first attempts at studying the history of Tibet were begun in earnest by the Japanese Empire and the German Third Reich in the late 1930s, the bulk of most excavation work since then has been conducted mainly by the People's Republic of China.

Bod: The Scion of Modern Tibet

As Zhangzhung declined, a Kingdom known as Bod (the present name of Tibet) came into existence at Yarlung and Chongyas valleys at the time of King Nyatri Tsenpo, who started the heroic age of the Chogyals (Religious Kings). Bod grew until the whole of Tibet was reunited under King Songtsen Gampo, when the last Shangshung king, Ligmigya, was killed.

The official Tibetan Royal Year of the modern Tibetan calendar is dated from the enthronement of King Nyatri Tsenpo in 127 BCE. This lineage of Tibetan monarchy constituted for well over a thousand years, till King Tri Wudum Tsen, more commonly known as Lang Dharma, was assassinated in 842.

Most illustrious of the above kings were Songtsen Gampo, Trisong Deutsen and Ngadhak Tri Ralpachen. They are called the Three Great Kings.

During the reign of King Songtsen Gampo (b. 620 CE) Tibet became a great military power and her armies marched across Central Asia. He promoted Buddhism in Tibet and sent one of his ministers and other young Tibetans to India for study. He first took a Tibetan princess from the Shangshung King as his wife and then obtained a Nepalese Consort. After invading the Chinese Empire he also obtained a Chinese princess as one of his wives. The two latter wives have been given prominence in the religious history of Tibet because of their services to Buddhism.

During the reign (755-97) of King Trisong Deutsen the Tibetan empire was at its peak and its army invaded China and other Central Asian countries. In 763 CE the Tibetans seized the then Chinese capital at Ch’ang-an (present-day Xian). As the Chinese Emperor had fled, the Tibetans appointed a new Emperor. This memorable victory has been preserved for posterity in the Zhol Doring (stone pillar) in Lhasa and reads, in part:-

“King Trisong Deutsen, being a profound man, the breadth of his counsel was extensive, and whatever he did for the kingdom was completely successful. He conquered and held under his sway many districts and fortresses of China. The Chinese Emperor, Hehu Ki Wang, and his ministers were terrified. They offered a perpetual yearly tribute of 50,000 rolls of silk and China was obliged to pay this tribute….”

It was during his time that Samye, the first monastery in Tibet, was founded by Guru Padmasambhava, who also established the supremacy of Buddhism. King Trisong Deutsen also expelled the Chinese monks (Hoshang), banished forever from Tibet the Chinese Chan School of Buddhism and adopted the Indian system. He also declared Buddhism as the state religion of Tibet.

During the reign of King Ngadhak Tri Ralpachen (815-836 CE), the Tibetan armies won many victories and in 821-2 a Peace Treaty was concluded with China. The inscription of the text of the treaty exists in three places: one outside the Chinese Emperor’s palace gate in Ch’ang-an, another before the main gate of Jokhang temple in Lhasa and the third on the Tibet-China border at Mount Gugu Meru. Eminent Tibetan scholars, Kawa Paltsek and Chogru Lui Gyaltsen, working with Indian scholars invited to Tibet, prepared the first Sanskrit-Tibetan lexicon, called the Mahavyapatti.

In 838 CE King Ralpachen’s brother, Wudum Tsen, ascended the throne. He tried to reinstate the Bon religion and persecuted the Buddhists. After his assassination by a Buddhist monk the kingdom was divided between his two sons. With warring princes, lords and generals contending for power the mighty Tibetan Empire disintegrated into many small princedoms from 842-1247 CE."

Although the history of the Tibetan state started in 127 B.C., with the establishment of the Yarlung Dynasty, the country as we know it was first unified in the 7th Century A.D., under King Songtsen Gampo and his successors. Tibet was one of the mightiest powers of Asia for the three centuries that followed, as a pillar inscription at the foot of the Potala Palace in Lhasa and Chinese Tang histories of the period confirm. Lhasa was appointed capital and this imperial age continued until 842 when King Langdarma was assassinated."

Historical Tibet included Qinghai, Western Sichuan and Northern Yunnan.

A formal peace treat concluded between China and Tibet in 821/823 demarcated the borders between the two countries and ensured that, "Tibetans shall be happy in Tibet and Chinese shall be happy in China." "Buddhism became a major presence in Tibet towards the end of the 8th century CE. It was brought from India at the invitation of the Tibetan king, Trisong Detsen, who invited two Buddhist masters to Tibet and had important Buddhist texts translated into Tibetan. The peace treaty concluded between Tibet and China in 821, is of particular importance in illustrating the nature of relations between these two great powers of Asia.

First to come was Shantarakshita, abbot of Nalanda in India, who built the first monastery in Tibet. He was followed by Padmasambhava, who came to use his wisdom and power to overcome "spiritual" forces that were stopping work on the new monastery."

Tibet Today

Tibet is a sovereign nation under military occupation of the People's Liberation Army of the Communist Party of China. It is in a mountainous region geographically between India and China. It was independent of outside interference and control until it was invaded by the Chinese Communists in 1951. They suppressed Buddhist culture and moved in hundreds of thousands of ethnic Chinese including occupation forces. The Chinese government considers Tibet to be geographically part of China and has made Tibet an Autonomous Region. Its capital is Lhasa. The spiritual leader and Head of State of Tibet is His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, currently in exile in India.[1] Tibet has the largest number of monks in the world with almost 1/3 of the population being a monk. [1] In Tibetan Buddhism, the top 5% is the Dalai Lama with government officials and the priesthood while the other 95% is the serfs.[2][3]

Tibetan art is intrinsically bound with Tibetan Buddhism.

.. With the assumption of power by the Dalai Lamas in 1642, the era of a "harmonious blend of religion and politics" was established in Tibet. Monasteries, temples and hermitages were found in every village and town throughout Tibet.

Tibet was an independent state in fact at the time of China's invasion. Tibetan society before the Chinese invasion was under the control of Buddhist monks headed by the Dalai Lama, a leader chosen by other monks because he was the supposed reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama. No semblance of democracy existed; total control of the country and all its assets was in the hands of the religious authorities and all Tibetans were subject to the rule of these authorities. The beginnings of popular Tibetan opposition to this theocratic rule was the reason why the Dalai Lama belatedly, and very slowly, initiated far-reaching reforms soon after he assumed full temporal authority in the early fifties.


The Chinese themselves view Tibet in colonial terms: that is, not as part of China proper, but as non-Chinese territory which China has a right to own and exploit, on the basis of a relationship that existed 700 years ago. Resistance to the Chinese occupation started to take on organized forms as early as 1952, reached massive proportions in 1959, and has continued, primarily underground, ever since.[4]

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